Global emissions of carbon dioxide were at a record high in 2011 and are likely to take a similar jump in 2012, scientists reported Sunday, Dec. 2 — the latest indication that efforts to limit such emissions are failing.

Emissions continue to grow so rapidly that an international goal of limiting the ultimate warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees, established three years ago, is on the verge of becoming unattainable, said researchers affiliated with the Global Carbon Project.

Josep Canadell, a scientist in Australia who leads that tracking program, said Sunday in a statement that salvaging the goal, if it can be done at all, “requires an immediate, large and sustained global mitigation effort.”

Yet nations around the world, despite a formal treaty pledging to limit warming — and 20 years of negotiations aimed at putting it into effect — have shown little appetite for the kinds of controls required to accomplish those stated aims.

California drenched in week’s 3rd storm

SAN FRANCISCO — Residents of Northern California hunkered down Sunday as a powerful storm drenched the area with yet another round of pounding rain and strong winds.

The latest storm system — the third to hit the area in less than a week — moved across the region late Saturday and early Sunday dropping as much as an inch of rain per hour in some areas, toppling trees and knocking out electrical service to tens of thousands of people, officials said.

With rivers across Northern California swelling from the deluge, the National Weather Service warned that several rivers were in danger of topping their banks Sunday afternoon or early Monday.

Flood warnings were in effect for the Napa and Russian rivers, two rivers north of San Francisco with a history of flooding, as well as the Truckee River, near Lake Tahoe.

Reports: Delta in talks for Virgin

NEW YORK — Delta Air Lines Inc. is mulling the purchase of a 49 percent stake in British airline Virgin Atlantic Airways from Singapore Airlines Ltd., according to media reports.

The remaining 51 percent of Virgin Atlantic is owned by billionaire Richard Branson, who founded the airline in 1984.

Buying Virgin is attractive to Delta because of its potential to unlock more access to London’s Heathrow airport, a key international gateway. Virgin is the second-biggest airline there after British Airways.

Bersani wins runoff election in Italy

ROME — Pier Luigi Bersani, the head of Italy’s main center-left Democratic Party, won a runoff primary Sunday to become the main center-left candidate for Italy’s 2013 general elections — a vote that polls indicate could well be won by the Democratic Party given the utter disarray of the opposing center-right.

Preliminary results gave Bersani 60.8 percent of the vote compared with Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi’s 39.1 percent, with two-thirds of the votes counted.

The 2013 general election — expected in March or April — will decide if Italy continues on the same path to financial health charted by Premier Mario Monti, appointed last year to save Italy from a Greek-style debt crisis. The former European commissioner was named to head a technical government after international markets lost confidence in then-Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s ability to rein in Italy’s public debt and push structural reforms.

Ex-PM Pahor wins Slovenia presidency

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Former Slovenia Prime Minister Borut Pahor won the presidential election Sunday, calling for unity in the tiny EU nation where discontent has been mounting with government budget cuts and other austerity measures designed to avoid a bailout.

Sunday’s vote came just days after anti-austerity protests in Ljubljana, the capital, erupted into clashes that left 15 people injured, triggering fears this normally placid Alpine nation of 2 million was heading into instability.

Several hundred protesters waving banners gathered Sunday in the eastern town of Krsko, even as snow blanketed the country, disrupting traffic in some parts and contributing to a low election turnout.

Slovenia, once an economic star among EU newcomers when it joined in 2004, has faced one of the worst recessions of the 17-nation eurozone.

Motorists trapped in tunnel collapse

TOKYO — At least seven people were feared dead after part of a highway tunnel collapsed Sunday in eastern Japan, trapping them in their vehicles and starting a fire that filled the tunnel with thick, black smoke.

Three vehicles appeared to have been crushed under concrete that fell from the ceiling of the 3-mile Sasago Tunnel near the city of Otsuki in Yamanashi prefecture, about 50 miles west of Tokyo, the national government’s disaster management agency said. Agency and police officials said it remained unclear why the 150- to 200-foot section of 8-inch-thick concrete, weighing about 180 tons, suddenly fell.

A vehicle carrying six people caught fire, emitting heavy smoke that initially prevented firefighters from entering the tunnel.

But even after putting out the blaze, rescuers had to temporarily suspend efforts to reach the trapped vehicles because of the danger of a further collapse, officials said.

At least 10 killed in Nigeria violence

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — A security official says at least 10 people were killed in attacks in northeast Nigeria likely carried out by a radical Islamist sect.

The security official said the killings happened Sunday in a village called Chibok in Borno state, where ongoing attacks by the sect known as Boko Haram have killed hundreds this year.

The official said the dead came from a church attacked by the gunmen and a road construction crew. Meanwhile, gunmen also burned down government buildings in the village of Gamboru.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity as only the military is allowed to discuss such attacks in the region. A military spokesman could not be reached for comment.

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